


Holidays

by decrescendo



Series: Missing Scenes [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 20:30:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11974467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decrescendo/pseuds/decrescendo
Summary: While his housemates discuss the upcoming holidays, Harry cannot help but think of how he never experienced a real Christmas with the Dursleys. Ron notices.





	Holidays

It was the coldest day Hogwarts had seen yet that year, and four Gryffindor first years were immensely pleased with themselves for having secured good spots next to the common room’s roaring fire. They had been lounging there for hours, not doing much in particular; each of them had dozed off briefly at one point or another. Now Harry was listening contently as Ron, Seamus, and Lavender discussed what the holidays were like at Hogwarts; Ron, who claimed that Charlie and Percy had stayed over Christmas once, was enthusiastically describing a scene that Harry privately thought was unlikely to be true.

“They’ve got about a hundred trees just in the Great Hall,” Ron was saying with relish, “and the feast is twice what we had our first night – and there’s thousands of real fairies flying around all lit up…”

“Hey, Harry,” said Lavender, turning to him, “do Muggles celebrate Christmas the same way we do? Like, exchanging gifts and everything?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t really know how wizard Christmas works, but yeah, Muggles exchange gifts and stuff.”

“What sort of gifts?” asked Seamus curiously. “I mean, you’ve obviously never gotten a toy broomstick or anything. What do Muggle kids even play with?”

“You know. Stuffed animals and train sets, that sort of thing. Maybe books or computer games if they’re older.”

“What’s a computer?” Ron asked with great interest.

“It’s like…” Harry struggled to come up with the words to describe a computer to someone who had never even experienced electricity. “It’s this sort of box, I guess, that Muggles use to write things and play games and…” He decided against trying to explain the Internet. “It has a screen,” he added hopefully, but judging from the blank looks on Ron, Seamus, and Lavender’s faces, this word meant nothing to them. “I don’t know, ask Hermione, she’ll be loads better at explaining it.”

Lavender ignored this and leaned toward him. “Do you have any computers? D’you think you could bring one back after the holidays?”

Harry bit back a laugh at her fascination even as something inside him squirmed at the reminder that most people had families they went home to for Christmas. “No,” he said, intentionally being ambiguous about which question he was answering.

She sat back, looking vaguely disappointed. Seamus asked, “Do you think it’ll be weird, going back to the Muggles after being here?”

Harry shrugged again, starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure why exactly he was reluctant to tell them that he was staying at Hogwarts for Christmas; after all, he had only ever been honest about his dislike of the Dursleys.

“Muggles can go into Diagon Alley if they’ve been through with a witch or wizard before,” said Lavender. “Hermione was telling me. Do you think they’ll try and get you something magical this year, Harry?”

Once, when Harry was very young, maybe six or seven, a well-meaning teacher had asked him after the holidays which of his Christmas presents he liked the best. He had struggled to come up with an answer: the Dursleys had given him only a stick of gum and a broken remote-control car that had been Dudley’s present the year before. The exact same mixture of panic, shame, and resentment that he had felt then swept through him now as he said tensely, and after a very pregnant pause, “Probably not.”

Harry could tell that they had picked up on his change of tone; their relaxed expressions had disappeared and now all three of them looked rather confused and worried, aware that some boundary had been crossed but unsure exactly what it was. He stood up, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get away. “I’ve got to finish my Potions essay,” he muttered. He could feel their eyes on him as he crossed the common room and climbed the stairs to the dormitory.

He did, in fact, have an essay to finish, but he made no move to pull it out. Instead, he pulled the hangings shut around his bed and sat in the middle of it, knees drawn up to his chest.

There was no good reason for him to feel like this. He had hardly even thought about the Dursleys since coming to Hogwarts; Snape, Flamel, and the knowledge that his parents had been murdered by the Darkest wizard of all time made the problems of his childhood feel rather silly by comparison. What did it matter, really, if his aunt and uncle had never gotten him a real present in his life? What did it matter if he was the only one of his classmates without a real family to go home to for the holidays? It wasn’t as if he _wanted_ to go back. His months at Hogwarts had been the happiest he could remember.

And yet, as much as he tried to tell himself these things, he could not quite get rid of the dull ache that sat somewhere beneath his ribcage.

He heard footsteps on the stone stairs and the dormitory door opened and closed. “Harry?” called Ron, quietly and a little uncertainly.

Harry opened and closed his mouth several times before words came out of it: his voice seemed to have vacated him. “Yeah?” he managed eventually.

He heard Ron come closer to his bed. “What are you doing?”

“My Potions essay,” said Harry. “Like I told you.”

Ron huffed and Harry couldn’t quite tell whether he was amused or annoyed. “What, in bed?” When Harry could come up with no answer he continued. “Look, mate…I’m sorry we were asking about the Dursleys. I know you don’t like talking about them.”

Harry’s throat felt rather tight all of a sudden and he wrapped his arms tightly around himself, glad that Ron could not see him. “It’s fine.”

“Are you, er, are you okay, then?”

“I’m fine.”

There was a long pause and Harry hoped desperately that Ron would take him at his word and go back downstairs; he didn’t think he could stand to be social at the moment.

The floorboards creaked slightly and Harry knew that Ron was shifting his weight, shuffling from one foot to the other the way he always did when he was nervous. _Please,_ thought Harry, _please go back downstairs._ What Ron said, though, was, “Open up.”

“What?” said Harry, startled at the crispness in his voice.

Ron’s hand appeared at the part in Harry’s hangings. “Come on, Harry, open the bloody curtains.”

“No – Ron – what are you doing?”

Ron had pulled the curtains apart the moment Harry refused. He looked down at Harry, who felt himself flush and quickly unwrapped his arms from around his drawn-up legs. “What the hell, Ron,” he said angrily. “I said I’m fine, just leave me –”

“Budge over.”

“ _What?_ ”

Ron was blushing furiously, but his expression was defiantly stubborn as he looked down at Harry. “I said budge over.”

“Why –” started Harry, but Ron was already clambering onto the bed. He automatically moved over to make room.

“Now,” said Ron once he had made himself comfortable, “tell me what’s going on. And don’t just say you’re fine. You’re a really terrible liar, actually, did you know that?”

“I’m not that bad,” Harry protested halfheartedly.

But he had not missed the note of insecurity underlying Ron’s uncharacteristic pushiness, and he knew then that Ron was not just trying to tease him. He seemed genuinely worried.

“Come on,” Ron prompted.

Harry was very aware of the way Ron was pressed up against him from shoulder to waist. _You can’t tell him,_ said a firm voice in his head.

_Yeah? And why’s that?_

_Remember what happened last time?_

He swallowed hard and looked down at his knees. Of course he remembered the last time he’d told anyone about how the Dursleys treated him. It hadn’t changed a thing, and he hadn’t been allowed out of his cupboard for weeks afterward.

 _It’s none of your business,_ Harry thought, and he opened his mouth to say so, but the words got mixed up somehow on their way out and what came out instead was, “It’s not just that my aunt and uncle and I don’t get on.”

He paused, hoping that Ron would interrupt him, but Ron said nothing; he was, apparently, only polite and considerate when Harry didn’t want him to be. Harry cleared his throat unnecessarily before continuing.

“They…they’ve never been exactly…nice to me. They don’t…”

“Go on,” said Ron quietly.

Harry tugged at a loose thread on his quilt, twisting it between his fingers. “They spoil my cousin rotten. He gets everything he ever asks for, you wouldn’t believe it. And I…I’ve never even gotten a real Christmas present. I know it’s silly,” he added hastily, realizing how childish he sounded, “but –”

“It’s not silly.” Harry looked up, surprised by the firmness in Ron’s voice. Ron blushed and glanced away the moment their eyes met.

The way the Dursleys treated him had never been something Harry wanted to talk about; in fact, he usually tried as hard as possible not to even think about it. Now, though, he was overcome with a strong and sudden urge to tell Ron everything, to let an account of every shouted insult and brutal beating spill from his lips. Ron wouldn’t understand – no one could understand – but Ron would _listen,_ he thought, and that was not something that had ever been offered to him before.

When he tried to speak, though, no words came out.

After a long pause Ron looked back at him. Something of his struggle must have shown on his face, because Ron said quietly, “It’s not just about the presents, is it?”

Harry shook his head.

“Do they…” Ron swallowed hard. “Do they hurt you?”

Harry had expected the question, had wanted it, even, but even so – to hear it said aloud by another person made his heart stutter to a stop inside his chest. _The Dursleys hurt me._ Slowly, he nodded.

Ron stared at him long enough that Harry began to wonder if perhaps the confession had changed his appearance somehow. Finally Ron said in a very tight voice, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

This was not the response that Harry had anticipated. “It never came up,” he said, a little defensively.

“Of course it didn’t come up,” snapped Ron. “When would it have come up? But you could have _told_ me, Harry.”

Harry looked away, stunned by the tone of Ron’s voice. He’d made him angry by telling him. If only he’d been a little less pathetic, if only he hadn’t lost his head over a stupid conversation about Christmas, then maybe Ron wouldn’t be looking at him now with so much resentment – maybe he wouldn’t have just lost the only person who had ever seemed to care at all.

 _I told you_ , said that nasty voice. _It never does any good, does it?_

He felt his eyes burn and he moved to get off the bed, anything to get away from Ron, but he felt a hand wrap around his upper arm.

“Wait,” said Ron. The anger in his voice had gone as suddenly as it had come. “Wait, Harry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Harry shook his head and tried to pull away. “Let go.”

“No, Harry, I’m sorry – listen, mate, I didn’t mean to sound angry, okay? I’m not mad at you.”

Harry’s heart betrayed him by giving a great jolt of hope and he stilled.

“I only meant…I just, I thought you trusted me, okay? I thought you knew you can tell me stuff like that.”

The burning in his eyes intensified and a took a deep, shuddering breath. “I know.”

Ron released his arm. “Good.”

Both of them were silent for a moment, Harry still half off the bed and facing away from Ron. Then, suddenly, he felt a warm weight against his back and Ron’s arms wrapped around his torso. “I’m sorry they hurt you,” Ron whispered. “You don’t deserve that.”

Harry swallowed hard several times before he could trust himself to speak. “I know,” he repeated eventually.

Ron released him from the embrace but kept a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Good,” he said, and Harry almost smiled.


End file.
